MP3unsigned News

Nowhere on the site are the upgrades more visible that on the new Artists Pages. Older users who have had their pages updated will see plenty of space for updating their information and pimping their profile. The following guide should help you to get your profile up to scratch in a few minutes.

Artists Pic

Make sure you use a good quality image, especially if you want a shot at appearing on the homepage as Featured Artist. A lot of people will judge a book by its cover so if you want the best chance of having getting your music listened to put some time and thought into the image you use. Remember, this little image will also appear beside your tracks in the Top 100 and the Charts.

Player

The new flash player is a significant upgrade over the previous one. It offers enhanced sound quality and default volume with no compression at higher bitrates. Have you ever noticed on some sites that the track you listen to through your computers MP3 software sounds a lot better than what you post to your page? This won’t bother you on MP3Unsigned so please, for the love of all that is holy… upload the best quality tracks you can! We recommend a minimum of 128kbps and a preferred rate of 192kbps or over.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the player can accommodate up to 100 of your tracks. Unless your creativity matches the productivity of a bunny rabbit in heat this should be more than enough space for you to show off your talents. You’ve got the space and the player so you might as well use them.

One last thing about the player, just below it you will notice a tab called ‘Listening To’ - this is your unique playlist of tracks you like from other artist on MP3Unsigned.com Anytime you go to an artists page and you are logged in, you can add any of their tracks to you playlist by clicking the + symbol beside the track that is playing in their player.

Artist Comments

This is where you get to describe your track. You can explain the equipment you used, the concept behind the piece, what motivated you to write is - whatever you want. You’ve got plenty of space so you might as well use it. It’s a good idea to add plenty of information about the track in this section so the listener can get a better sense of what you have achieved or what you want them to experience from your music.

If you want user comments then make sure to ask for them. If you want honest constructive criticism then ask for it too. Once of the things that this music community prides itself on is honesty and straight talking, so get with the program and forget about just giving and receiving vacuous comments. Bear in mind though that not everyone likes to have their music dissected and laid bare on front of them, use your tack comments to get across what you are looking for.

Lyrics

If you’ve got em, then post em. We’ve given you a tab beside your comments to post up lyrics for any tracks that have them. Again, posting lyrics is a good idea as it keep your listener more engaged and focused on your work.

Gallery

This is self explanatory, people like to get as much of an impression as possible from an artist whose music they like. Give them what they want, use this to share your art, photos or even just images that you have found that you feel express what you’re all about. Is is advisabel to have at least one picture in your gallery as this will help to fill out the look of your artist page and make things more interesting.

Video Feed

Use this to upload your music videos. It is becoming increasingly easy to make videos using free downloadable software and even free online resources. If you have a music video this is the place for it. The video feed works as a feed from your youtube channel. All you have to do is input the code to your channel in your account and you’re up and running. If you don’t have a music video well you can still use this to show whatever you want on youtube!

Artist Bio

This is very important. It is strongly advised that you add some information to your Bio to let listeners know more about the person behind the music. Use the text editor to make things look interesting, you can even insert more images here such as banners etc.

Artist News

Recording a new track? Playing some gigs? Involved in a collaboration or new band? This is the place for it!

Reviews

Reviews are done by other members of the site and are usually organised through the reviews section of the forum. Make sure you read the stickies first in the reviews part of the forum before requesting a review.

Influenced By

List your influences here - what other musicians have helped to create your sound and mold you into the artist you are today?

Twitter

Here are some facts about Twitter:

Links

Some links worth putting in here include:

• Fan page for your music on Facebook
• Your Twitter link
• Link to your forum profile
• Links to your music on other networks (soundcloud, myspace, soundclick etc)
• Causes, Influences etc - any link you want to promote goes here (illegal links such as warez, illegal downloads, crack software or porn is strictly prohibited)

Every musician has multiple profiles across different sites and networks, we understand this. So why not just post them all in one place.

Recommends / Recommended By

This was a change that we had to make for a number of reasons. Previously, everyone had a list of links to other artists who they recommended and artists who they were recommended by. Rather than having rambling lists of links at the bottom of your page we have replace this with a grid that displays artist images from your Recommends / Recommended By list. This list recyles and is randomly chosen every time your page is clicked or refreshed. It displays 16 images on each side and ia fixed size so your page will not run the risk of skewing out of shape. We will probably rework this down the line but for now it helps to round off your pages nicely. This also offers yet another reason for you to have good images on your page becuase your pic will be appearing randomly on other artist pages who have recommended you across the site.

Note: To recommend an artist you simply click the Recommend button above the flash player.

Part of the redevelopment of the site involved a completely new look and feel. Even we have kept some many of the original elements we have also added some new features including a Top 100, Social Networking feeds (Facebook, Twitter, Forum and Blog). Let’s take a look at some of these new elements which are bringing the site up to speed.

Top 100:

One of the key changes here is the update to the chart. Besides tidying up the look and adding artist icons and links to artist pages and/or the specific track, we have also provided for a Top 100.

On the bottom right of the charts now you can see a new button title “Next 20″, clicking this will shuffle the charts along to the next set of 20 eg 21-40, 41-60 and so on, all the way up to 100.

It is important to note that if you don’t have an image on your artists page this will appear blank on the charts. So everyone is advised to update their images ASAP!

In addition to the extending to a Top 100 we have also upgraded the way in which they this chart operates. On the old site a track position within the Top 20 would remain live for one week only. This has now been extended and includes a weighting system based on when tracks are uploaded and when votes are received. The ’Charts’ (formerly Classic Charts) operates differently to the Top 100, this is where you can see which tracks have the most overall number of votes on an annual basis. So now we have two relevant charts that users can become more involved in.

More on how the charts operate later! Suffice it to say, we expect the new system to give users a much better opportunity to see how their tracks fare beyond the Top 20 while giving them the chance to work their way up the chart to a higher position on a week by week basis.

Social Networking

Facebook: Maybe not everyones cup of tea but there is no denying that Facebook and Twitter have become hugely important and popular. As such we have embraced these new tools and ask you to do the same. By ‘Liking’ our Facebook page you will get unintrusive updates on important events and updates on the site including competitions, new features and a link to the charts. Adding us to your page will help to spread the word and drive traffic to MP3Unsigned - this is what we need to be able to keep the show on the road so please, if you have a Facebook account

Twitter: Directly below this we have also included our Twitter feed. This is a handy little tool for us to post small updates and pieces of information to the homepage without having to create a whole new blog entry. Again, if you have a Twitter account please follow us on www.twitter.com/mp3u

User Activity: Many of our long term users will welcome the return of this feature. This is where you can see a brief intro to the most recent posts made on our #mce_temp_url# It’s a handy way of scanning activity from the homepage and something that ties in with the other social elements.

Blog: Well this is the blog that you are reading right now, basically it’s our newsfeed. This is where we will pass on information about how the site works, any updates that are planned and detailed information on competitions etc. If you choose to, you can follow the blog by clicking on the RSS button on the top right, this will give you an email alert any time we post up something new.

Featured Artist

If you want to be chosen as the Featured Artist you need to have a high quality image on your artist page (without this you won’t be considered). It is also important to note that this same picture will now appear beside your artist name and track title on the list of latest uploaded tracks AND chart position in the Top 100. So what are you waiting for, start pimping up your artist page with some high quality images!

Slideshow

The slideshow you see at the top of the homepage will be an ever changing feature. We will use this area to graphically communicate with our users, to promote bands and artists and to announce competitions and sponsors etc. We are always open to new ideas so if you think you have an idea or some fitting artwork that you would like to share then don’t hesitate to contact us!

So there you have it, we hope that you like the new look of the homepage, as we have said before, this is Phase 1 of an ongoing development so the homepage is going to grow and evolve as we move forward.

Welcome to MP3Unsigned.com

18 months in development, hundreds of hours discussing what our members need and what the best online community for unsigned artists and bands should offer. So here we are. A completely revamped and redesigned website and we’d love to hear what you think!

Since last March, we’ve embarked on constant improvement of the site code and functionality. All of which means it is now more usable, scalable, web friendly, and embraces the world of social media to help assist with your music creation and production.

Our mission is the following “To be the world’s number one meeting point for unsigned artists and bands, providing a social network for musicians which is user focused and democratic for all music tastes”

We hope you sign up, or if you are a regular loyal member, start to explore the site.

In summary – the site offers:

• A new innovative website – simple and powerful to use
• New band/artists pages – slick image management
• Increased numbers of tracks and videos
• More competitions
• Improved Chart system – with Top 100 accessible from homepage
• State of the art media player
• New ways to promote your presence
• As always - honest feedback on your music
• Most importantly… access to best community of unsigned artists anywhere!

What we don’t offer:

• False promises to our members of huge fame and fortune
• No unrealistic promises of record deals
• ‘Street teams’ or other dishonest notions of mass fan base creation
• Lifeless forums
• Spammers clogging up your artist pages with ads and promo links to their own music

Looking Forward

There are further enhancements to the site planned and this is only Phase 1, so come onboard and discover a host of new tools and features to help you create, produce, collaborate and promote your music. The next big update with be the forum, we’ll be making a major upgrade that will provide a whole load of new features and goodies. More on that soon.

And finally, we would like to thank all of the loyal users of mp3unsigned for making this site what it is today. You’ve been very patient and understanding during the upgrade process which was a long and winding road!

And on that note, “take me to you music!”

Admin